Glass House Presents is an ongoing series of public programs – including conversations, performances, and gatherings – that sustains the site’s historic role as a meeting place for artists, architects, and other creative minds. Before each event, visitors will enjoy the opportunity to explore the Glass House campus and view current exhibitions, including Fujiko Nakaya: Veil. The program concludes with light refreshments. Public programs take place from 3:00 to 5:30 p.m. on Sundays, and 5:30 to 8 p.m. on Thursdays.

lucky dragons is an ongoing collaboration between Los Angeles-based artists Sarah Rara and Luke Fischbeck. Active since 2000, lucky dragons is known for an open and participatory approach to making music, radically inclusive live shows, and playful, humanistic use of digital tools. Photo by Tom Hall.

Night Sounds #4 is generously supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

Rendering photo of Fujika Nakaya: Veil

Into the Fog with Fujiko NakayaPanel discussion at the Japan Society, New York
May 13, 2014, 6:30 p.m.

Renowned artist Fujiko Nakaya, known for her pioneering use of fog as a sculptural medium, is joined by Henry Urbach, Director of the Glass House, to discuss the artist’s current project, Fujiko Nakaya: Veil, on view at the Glass House through November 30.

Fujiko Nakaya: Veil is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, The Japan Foundation, and Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope®. Additional support is provided by Mee Industries, Inc.

The Glass House

Self-Guided Tours

Self-guided tours of the Glass House offer visitors a unique opportunity to experience the Glass House campus at their own pace. In addition to the permanent art collection and temporary exhibitions, visitors enjoy access to seven structures designed by Philip Johnson, including: the Glass House, the Painting Gallery, the Sculpture Gallery, Da Monsta, and the Library, as well as the lower landscape’s Pond Pavilion and Lincoln Kirstein Tower. Photo by Carol Highsmith.

The Glass House Summer Party will take place on Saturday, June 14 from 12 noon to 4 p.m. With support from Swarovski, the Summer Party will feature a festive picnic lunch, lawn games, music, and a silent auction along with opportunities to experience Fujiko Nakaya: Veil and the entire Glass House campus.

Coinciding with the 65th anniversary of the Glass House and its 2014 tour season, the Glass House will present Fujiko Nakaya: Veil, the first site-specific artist project to engage the iconic Glass House itself, designed by Philip Johnson and completed in 1949. Veil will be included on all tours of the Glass House during the 2014 tour season. Tickets are available now.

Nakaya, a Japanese artist who has produced fog sculptures and environments internationally, will wrap the Glass House in a veil of dense mist that comes and goes. For approximately 10 to 15 minutes each hour, the Glass House will appear to vanish, only to return as the fog dissipates. Inside the structure, the sense of being outdoors will be temporarily suspended during the misty spells.

Veil will stage a potent dialogue with the Glass House, producing an opaque atmosphere to meet the building’s extreme transparency and temporal effects that complement its timelessness. According to Glass House Director Henry Urbach, “Johnson’s interest in the balance of opposites is evident throughout the Glass House campus. With Nakaya’s temporary installation, we carry this sensibility to its endpoint while allowing the unique magic of the Glass House – the dream of transparency, an architecture that vanishes – to return again and again as the fog rises and falls.”

Organized by Henry Urbach, Director and Chief Curator, and Irene Shum Allen, Curator and Collections Manager, Fujiko Nakaya: Veil is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Additional support is provided by Mee Industries, Inc.

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Few visitors ever have the opportunity to see the Glass House in the snow as the site is closed to the public from the end of November to the beginning of May every year. Glass House staff member, Michael Hall, took these lovely photos of the Glass House during and after a recent snowfall. We hope you enjoy them!

Tours of the Glass House will run between May 1 – November 30, 20142014 program and exhibition announcements coming soon.

New this season: self-guided tours

Self-guided tours at the Glass House will be available on select dates and offer visitors a unique opportunity to experience the Glass House campus and its pastoral landscape at their own pace. In addition to the permanent art collection and temporary exhibitions, visitors enjoy access to seven structures designed by Philip Johnson, including the Glass House, the Painting Gallery, the Sculpture Gallery, Da Monsta, and the Library, as well as the lower landscape’s Pond Pavilion and Lincoln Kirstein Tower. Glass House guides will be available to provide historical background and answer questions.

Glass House Readings brings notable authors and intellectuals to the Glass House to read from a new work. The guest author and audience will also walk the site and enjoy refreshments. Visitors begin and end at the Glass House Visitor Center, located at 199 Elm Street directly across from the New Canaan train station. Space is limited; reservations are required. Tickets $75.00, price includes admission and a signed copy of Building Seagram.

Architect, photographer, lecturer, historian and critic of architecture and urbanism, Phyllis Lambert is Founding Director and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal. Lambert first made architectural history as the Director of Planning of the Seagram Building in New York (1954-58). She is recognized internationally for her contribution in advancing contemporary architecture, together with for her concern for the social issues of urban conservation and the role of architecture in the public realm. Lambert has pioneered and contributed to publications on photography and architecture, architecture and landscape, conservation, and the urban history of Montreal. Recently published, Building Seagram is a cultural history of architecture, art, urban regulations and real estate, as well as conservation and stewardship in New York City, 1950-2000.

Mark Lamster

Mark Lamster is the architecture critic of the Dallas Morning News and associate professor in the architecture school at the University of Texas at Arlington. He is currently at work on a biography of Philip Johnson, to be published by Little Brown. A contributing editor to Architectural Review and Design Observer, his work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many national magazines.

For more than a decade, Lamster served as an editor at Princeton Architectural Press, in New York. Prior to that, he was an editor at George Braziller, the distinguished publisher of illustrated books. He is the author of numerous books, including Master of Shadows (2009), a political biography of the painter Peter Paul Rubens, and Spalding’s World Tour(2006), the story of a group of all-star baseball players who circled the globe in the 19th century. His research papers from that book are available at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown. He holds degrees from Johns Hopkins and Tufts universities.

Night (1947 – 2015): Jason Dodge, A tourmaline and a ruby inside of an owl. Photo by Amanda Kirkpatrick, courtesy of the Glass House.

Night (1947 – 2015) is a sculpture-in-residence program, an unfolding sculptural exhibition inspired by the historical presence of the sculpture Night by Giacometti in the Glass House. Night (1947 – 2015) is composed of a series of works by contemporary artists that contend with the legacy of Giacometti’s sculpture and Johnson’s architectural opus. On display for three to six months at a time, each sculpture in Night (1947 – 2015) eventually “disappears,” making room for new work and new absences.

Night (1947 – 2015): Jason Dodge, A tourmaline and a ruby inside of an owl. Photo by Amanda Kirkpatrick, courtesy of the Glass House.

Conversations in Contextinvites leaders from creative fields to reflect on the site’s history and to contribute their perspectives on the Glass House and its significance to contemporary debates. Conversations in Context take place from 5:30 – 8:00 p.m. and include a reception and site tour. Tickets are $150.

Night Sounds #2 was generously funded by the Historic Sites Interpretation and Education Fund, administered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Liz Harris has been recording, performing, and releasing solo material under the name Grouper since 2005 on various imprints including Kranky, Type, and her own YELLOWELECTRIC. Her work examines paradox, division space, twinning, and the intricacies of human behavior.

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma is a Brooklyn-based musician who has performed in bands and under his own name since 1996. He is a founding member of the groups Tarentel, The Alps, Portraits, and Moholy-Nagy as well as the Root Strata record label. His solo work is often generated from the electric guitar and explores memory, melancholia, excess, and restraint.

Night (1947 – 2015) is a sculpture-in-residence program, an unfolding sculptural exhibition inspired by the historical presence of the sculpture Night by Giacometti in the Glass House. Night (1947 – 2015) is composed of a series of works by contemporary artists that contend with the legacy of Giacometti’s sculpture and Johnson’s architectural opus. On display for three to six months at a time, each sculpture in Night (1947 – 2015) eventually “disappears,” making room for new work and new absences.